Bryant one-year MBA is expanding

When Sara Marino graduated in May from the University of Connecticut with a bachelor’s degree in economics, she knew she wanted to pursue an MBA but she was not sure which school or program would be best for her.
“Because I lived in Rhode Island my entire life, I have always heard about what a great school Bryant [University] is,” said the 22-year-old, who grew up in East Greenwich. “When I began to look into various MBA programs this past year, I was drawn to [Bryant’s] one-year program.”
Marino is scheduled to be one of 30 students who will enter Bryant University’s one-year MBA program in September. This is the second year the full-time, 11-month program has been offered. But College of Business deans feel this year actually marks what they call “the official launch” because two key components have been added in 2009-10: a practicum that will give students right out of college real-world work experience for one semester and an intensive two-week, long-term career planning segment between terms in January.
“The Bryant one-year MBA takes place over three semesters – fall, spring and summer. So I will be able to complete my degree without falling behind on other life plans,” Marino told Providence Business News. “I can accelerate my plans for the future without skimping on any educational value.”
Said business college Dean Jack W. Trifts, “There is no direct substitute for five years of work experience.” But he says the Bryant program can fill gaps in a student’s resume by offering those with limited or no work experience, like Marino, a chance to gain that experience at the management level while pursuing an academic degree.
For a long time, Trifts said, the national trend has been to require three to five years’ worth of work experience for MBA candidates, but the reality “when it came time to fill seats” was that an MBA class often would consist of a mix of students, some with work experience and some without. “You really don’t want a 35-year-old physician from Lifespan, for example, sitting next to a 22-year-old right out of college,” Trifts said, due to the disparity in life and work experiences. Bryant continues to offer its part-time, two-year MBA program for those who are working or have work experience.
In the one-year program, Trifts said, students will gain “managerial consultant” experience by working on “real-life problems” at a local corporation, supervised by seasoned Bryant faculty. Kristopher Sullivan, assistant dean of the College of Business, said the curriculum of the one-year program “looks essentially the same” as the two-year, noting that both are case-based.
Local companies where one-year students will work during the practicum “run the gamut” of businesses, Sullivan said, ranging from insurance companies to technology groups to financial services firms. Students will work with senior management at the company to solve a problem or conduct research, Sullivan explained.
The second component new to the one-year MBA program this year is what Sullivan called a “two-week intensive course on long-term career planning” in January when, after self-examination, students will work on “what they’re passionate about” or do exploratory research to determine “what industry would be a good fit for their long-term careers.” They even could focus on one particular skill they need to work on for the two weeks, Sullivan said, such as negotiating, consulting techniques or how to manage a difficult employee. Local executives, including Bryant alumni, will be featured as guest speakers. Today’s business students, Sullivan said, typically are interested in career advancement, the many uses of the latest technology and in networking opportunities, both online and personal. “They want to build lifelong connections,” he said. Sullivan pointed out that program graduates will “have access to the Bryant MBA alumni network for the rest of their lives.”
The potential to build such relationships is another reason Marino chose Bryant. “I was particularly drawn to the fact that I will be moving with the same group of students for the duration of the program,” she said. “I think this will not only ease the difficulty of the classes, but it also will allow for long-lasting connections to form.”
Sullivan agreed that one-year MBA programs nationwide are rare, particularly those offering work experience. He said that now that Bryant’s has been fully defined and in place for one year, the university will begin actively recruiting students for it on both a national and international basis.
Before he came to Bryant, Trifts said he was a dean at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., where he worked from 1989 to 2002 and started a one-year MBA program that he directed in the late 1990s, specifically designed for students with limited or no work experience. “Some of the lessons learned there we can use here,” he said. He noted many young people right out of college do not want to defer their MBAs.
The one-year Bryant MBA program is open to new or recent college graduates, regardless of their undergraduate course of study. Prerequisites include a strong score on the GMAT exam and completion of two required courses. &#8226